Rather than direct their watchdog ire at the Associated Press (who were responsible for the story), or the major newspapers that ran the story like The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian UK, The New York Post, etc., Media Matters elects to attack Matt Drudge for merely linking to the story. Examples of the headlines are shown below:

Drudge’s transgression appears to modifying an AP headline to focus on Kerry, while ignoring Lugar. No offense to Senator Lugar, but his name hardly captures reader interest the way a former candidate for President does. Nowhere does Media Matters accuse mainstream news outlets of attempting to smear Kerry (or Lugar) by running the AP story, that honor is reserved for the one site that merely linked to a wire service copy of the article. By leading off with an attack on Drudge, Media Matters shifts the focus off the real story – the shoddiness of Associated Press reporter Anne Gearan’s research. Even rudimentary web research on the name Fulton Armstrong indicates that his “cover” was not blown.

I do note of late a huge ramping up of the ankle-biting gossip-mongering by the left media to and about anyone else. I think it’s time for a line to be drawn, though I have no idea how that would be/could be represented.

– The MSM is athwart in the massive failures of the past 5 years and the rise of the blogmecca. Did anyone of us suppose for a minute they would take their demise lying down and go quietly. Not a day goes by that some other non-reality news release ends up biting them on the ass. To think they won’t inflate, embellish, and just plain manufacture any bad press they can is to ignore the deep anger they hold for all things conservative, and the blogsphere’s voice on the right. I can no longer see any noticable difference between The National Inquirer and any MSM rag you care to name. They of the left continue to “blow their own cover” every day of the week. Tis a real pity we no longer have two viable parties in this country.

JillApril 13, 2005

Poor David Brock. With all the massive liberal media attacks on Republicans lately, he has to come up with SOMETHING this week to give George Soros his money’s worth. Even he knows how pathetic he is. But when you’re a whore for a guy who has been indicted in France recently for fraud,……what do any of us expect.

Come on, you’re talking about a group led by an admitted liar, and whose most absurd act being a “media watchdog” was to protest AL MICHAELS for making a joke about John Kerry’s flip flopping on a Monday Night Football broadcast.

Just checking–do any of you actually read Media Matters, or do you just let your leaders tell you what to think about it? You would be a lot more convincing if you could factually refute Media Matters’ critiques of the media. Even in this particular case, most of the Media Matters piece was critical of the AP story, criticizing Drudge only for his headline…which is pretty much what you guys are doing, come to think of it.